My employer had a director in charge of renewable this or that, and she even told me once restrictions on China came into play, RI just started warehousing the recycling that didn't end up in the landfill. I don't know if there's been any resolution to that, but when I was involved, it had been going on for years.

Think about your curbside recycling. You do your best, rinse out everything, only put in approved recycling items. Your neighbor came from someplace where they recycle a lot more kinds of items, so they put several things not approved in RI into their recycling. The next neighbor down throws dirty food containers in there. The same truck picks it all up. The whole truckload is contaminated and goes in the landfill. No one is paying to have individuals pick through truckloads of recycling to remove the non-recycling, it's just too time-consuming and expensive.